It has been two years since my last entry. A puzzlement myself, I wondered why it had ever stopped. I loved to write- it was all I had to channel everything- all my thoughts, my doubts, my dreams...my fears. I've done so since the fourth grade. I mostly wrote about useless and random crap, but every once in a while, it was about something worthwhile...about something I really thought long and hard on...about something I deeply cared about and believed in. It was an escape to a place where no one judged you, where I felt open and free to let others know my take on life...a safe haven, really.
I received a beautiful leather-bound journal as a gift eight months ago. It remains untouched, sitting on top of my dresser. I see it every day... I walk passed it every day and yet I can't seem to bring myself to open it...and to fill it's clean white pages with my daily scribble. And when I realized that the answer is the absence of writing itself, wheels started to turn. And after a two year gap in writing, a two year's worth of self examination, meditation, and soul searching...I sit myself down..and I start to write this entry. Out of practice, incoherent, and scrambled, yet revived.
The journal was perfect in every way- the size, the shape, the color, the binding, the way it felt in my hands...the sentiment. At the time of its arrival, my life was and has been less than average. I didn't have a career that I was proud of - I didn't even know where to start to get to where I wanted to be. Loved ones around me were stressed and tired and ill. Those who were close seem to have forgotten who I really was. My personal relationship wasn't going anywhere. I was always sick- emotionally and physically. The stress was too much to handle. And soon, I felt withdrawn- from everyone around me.
I felt like I was in a cubicle- worse...I felt like I was in a box. Enclosed and trapped. I hate feeling trapped. I was just all sorts of lost, confused and unhappy...angry at life, really. But moreso, angry at myself for not being able to save myself from the whirlpool of self doubt and pity that I've drowned myself in. It was a circular effect that snowballed itself into self entrapment. Where I always turned to writing to free myself from whatever predicament I was in, this time, I thought that no amount of writing could ever save me. And so I stopped.
With those imperfections, how I could possibly bring myself to tarnish and spoil those clean white pages? I no longer felt that my words and my thoughts were worth preserving. Words on paper are forever- I didn't want those imperfections to remain so. Words on paper have direction- where was I going? Words on paper have a voice- I no longer felt that I was being heard. I've never been so lost and writing about it would have just reminded me over and over again, of my frustrations.
But my family was always there for me. Whether or not they noticed a change in behavior, they were there- and their presence was the only thing I hung on to. Things began to get better when I finally decided to take charge in my life. And although everything around me has improved, I wasn't ready to begin writing again. I still didn't have a strong hold of things.
But my life has changed drastically- and all within only a few months- especially after getting married. Everything seemed to work out the way it was supposed to- everyone kept telling me, and I never believed them, but now I do. My faith is restored, my head, back on my shoulders...and now, with renewed optimism, there is much to tell- my story, a chance and the confidence to tell others of my experience. When silence gets hold of you, whether or not you realize it, to others, it is open to interpretation- it's what others make of it.
And as I am ready to start writing again, what once was cautioning me to carefully reconsider my pen and paper addiction, is now cheering me on to continue with my love of words and the power that it possesses.
I wouldn't have been able to get through this if it weren't for my friends and family who always believed in me. I've found ground again...and I am confident...for my words (or lack of words) will never fail me again. It feels so good to be back...
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